Evan Osnos joins a tour group from China as they traverse Europe. In the front row of the bus, Li stood facing the group with a microphone in hand, a posture he would retain for most of our waking hours in the days ahead. In the life of a Chinese tourist, guides play an especially prominent role—translator, raconteur, and field marshal—and Li projected a calm, seasoned air. He often referred to himself in the third person—Guide Li—and he prided himself on efficiency. “Everyone, our watches should be synchronized,” he said. “It is now 7:16 P.M.” He implored us to be five minutes early for every departure. “We flew all the way here,” he said. “Let’s make the most of it.” [more inside]
posted by WalterMitty
on Jul 28, 2011 -
71 comments
August Wind is a top-down 'free-roaming shooter' about mining valuable metals off the backs of cloudeels. It's the Bachelor Thesis project for Jeremy Spillmann at the Zürich School of the Arts. It features charming 2D graphics and a gypsy soundtrack.
[more inside]
posted by juv3nal
on Aug 28, 2009 -
7 comments
Building and flying free flight model airplanes is a pastime so obscure it doesn't even register on the geek heirarchy. But in the period between Lindberg's flight across the Atlantic until the start of the Second World War,
thousands of boys (and some girls)
around the
world succumbed to the allure of rubber,
lube, and
dope.
[more inside]
posted by gamera
on Aug 6, 2009 -
13 comments
Though the
B-2 Spirit is perhaps the best-known of the
flying wing designs, its creation came almost 50 years after the earliest attempts at creating fixed-wing aircraft with no definite fuselage. The first prototypes of Frenchman
Charles Fauvel's flying wings followed the patent on his formula for the flying wing in 1929. Jack Northrop's newly formed Northrop Aircraft Co. created the first flying wing for the United States in 1940, dubbed
Northrom N-1M "Jeep". But it was the
Horten Brothers, German aircraft pilots and enthusiasts, who created the first fully-functional stealth flying wing: the
Horten Ho IX.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jun 24, 2009 -
32 comments
Wired: "In February, a B-2 stealth bomber crashed in Guam. Now we know why. And we've got video of the scene." (good stuff starts around 1:20)
posted by stbalbach
on Jun 6, 2008 -
124 comments
Luigi Colani, Biomorphic Designer — This prolific
master of
plastic has been creating organically streamlined
planes,
trains,
automobiles,
trucks,
motorcycles,
ships,
cities,
homes,
computers,
cameras,
televisions,
furniture,
pianos,
ceramics,
shoes,
eyewearPDF,
pens,
airbrushes, and other wonderful
stuff (
including the
kitchen sink) for some
60 years. Wherever you need to
go, you can reach your
final destination in Colani style. More designs
here,
here,
here, and
here.
[Brits and touristas take note: London's Design Museum will host a Colani exhibition, Translating Nature, from March 3 to June 17, 2007. Bibliophiles can check out the book Colani: The Art of Shaping the Future.]
posted by cenoxo
on Feb 18, 2007 -
14 comments
An interesting project from the latest Vectors Journal.
"Legend has it that Paglen, who has been called the Fox Mulder of cultural geography, was personally instrumental in provoking the military to extend the perimeter around Area 51 by several miles in an attempt to thwart one of his counter-surveillance efforts" [via]
posted by tellurian
on Feb 16, 2007 -
5 comments
Skyrates, pronounced like "pirates," is a new flash game currently open for beta testing. Designed by a group of seven students at Carnegie Mellon University, the concept was to create an MMORPG that you could simply check on every few hours throughout the day, like you would with your e-mail. The outcome is a simple but enveloping, and somewhat silly game that manages to be addictive as hell while only taking up a few minutes per day. (plus it's free.)
posted by Navelgazer
on Dec 15, 2006 -
80 comments
"People were tripping over each other, climbing over the seats to get to the exit." Warbaby posted a
link on July 7 to an article by Lee Clark that said people don't panic in disasters. Survivors from Tuesday's Toronto plane crash give a different story. Here's one account:
Ho said people at first were calm and lining up, but once fire from the back of the plane, "people were tripping over each other, climbing over the seats to get to the exit."
He said a flight attendant told him to jump out the front door with no chute, but it was about a 12-fioot drop. He ran to a second door. It had a damaged chute, but he took it.
"I jumped and fell onto some people," Ho said. "Some people broke their arms or legs."
posted by stevefromsparks
on Aug 3, 2005 -
42 comments
The Pacific Wrecks Database is an impressive collection of information about lost and found WWII wrecks in the Pacific. The site is a little hard to navigate (I suggest using the past news archives and the direct links in the description slug on the first page, rather than the drop-down menu,) but the content is worth the trouble. Essays from veterans, discovery tales, photographs, maps, and more await.
posted by headspace
on Sep 10, 2004 -
3 comments
The F-22 Raptor is the next generation fighter for the United States. At nearly 97 million each, it will be deployed in 2004.This
site gives a remarkably detailed report regarding its design and function. Including such gems as "first-look, first-shot, first-kill capability" and " Humans are good differentiators, but they are poor integrators."
posted by JohnR
on Dec 19, 2002 -
53 comments
Lockheed Martin beat out Boeing for a
$200 Billion contract to build the new
F-35 fighters jets earlier today. Missile defense, planes that can take off vertically, bombs that fry electronics...military technology is accelerating at a really frightening pace.
posted by catatonic
on Oct 26, 2001 -
36 comments
